This invention relates to an electronic toy system and an electronic toy ball.
In recent years electronic programmable toy systems have become very popular. This can for instance be seen at so-called robot-cup events where competitors build their own robots to compete in some discipline. A discipline could be a robot soccer game, where a competitor has to build a robot soccer player; another discipline could be robot obstacle race. Typically, these robot-cup events have been held by university organisations for university students or institutes. However, with the recent developments and commercialisations of electronic programmable toys such events are now arranged for kids. For this purpose especially construction toy systems with programmable elements are very popular, since a robot may be configured easily for one competition discipline, rebuilt, and used for another different discipline.
Japanese laid open patent application no 2000079283-A discloses an optical tracking device for toys. A transmitting unit e.g. in the form of a sphere has holes at equal intervals on its outer surface. Through each hole, an infrared ray signal produced by an infrared ray transmitter is transmitted externally. The transmitted signal is received by a receiver of a vehicle for straight running.
In a first aspect, the invention relates to an electronic toy system comprising: a first toy element arranged to emit infrared light to its surroundings; a play face with a light reflection varying structurally over the play face; and a second toy element with means for moving the second toy element, a first detector arranged to detect infrared light emitted from the first toy element, a second detector arranged to detect light reflection of a dot on the play face, and a control unit coupled to the detectors; wherein the control unit is to control the means to locate the first toy element and to navigate on the play face.
The use of a play face with a structurally varying light reflection, e.g. varied in visible grey tones or in colours, is used to set up a position system for navigating toy elements capable of sensing the light reflection of at least a dot on the play face. This in combination with the capability of sensing infrared light makes it possible to interact with toy elements emitting infrared light and to navigate on the play face in some pre-programmed way, thus bringing various robot interacting behaviours into the play.
In a second aspect, the invention relates to a battery-operated electronic toy ball for use in an electronic toy system according to claim 1, comprising: infrared light emitters arranged spatially within the ball to emit infrared light to its surroundings, and wherein said emitters are switched on and off sequentially; wherein said infrared light emitters are arranged at mutually different angles to emit light from the ball in all directions.
By turning the infrared light emitters on and off sequentially the effective radiation range of the toy ball is extended. In fact the battery is capable of supplying a larger electrical current through each emitter when only one or a few emitters are switched on at a time. By switching the emitters on and off sufficiently fast it is ensured that light is emitted in all directions even though the ball rotates. This aspect is particularly important in toys since light detectors with a great sensitivity are too expensive for use in toys.
In a third aspect, the invention relates to a toy system, comprising a toy element, and a play face with a light reflection varying structurally over the play face; said is toy element comprising: motor means coupled to move the toy element; a first light detector arranged to detect infrared light emitted towards the toy element from a unit on the play face; a second light detector arranged to detect light reflection of the play face; and a control unit arranged to receive from said detectors signals representative of influx of infrared light on the first light detector, and influx of light on the second light detector; wherein said control unit is capable of executing a program to: control the motor means to navigate the toy element on the play face in response to signals responsive to infrared light; control the motor means to navigate the toy element on the play face in response to signals responsive to light reflection of the play face.
Consequently, a user makes a programme to navigate the toy both with respect to other toy elements emitting infrared light and with respect to a position on the play face.